I'm surprised no one brought this up here, yet. But the rumored new Canon will be significantly lighter than the Oly E620--370g vs. 470g (without batteries).

I guess the new Oly E has already been designed and is launching this year regardless of the new competitive landscape. I still have 4/3 lenses that I hope I can use on a new Oly body and would like Olympus to do well. I'm hoping that the new "EOS-b" can generate new interest in small sized DSLR and that could help Oly--if the new E is on the small size, like an E-520 size. Then Oly would have a high end, small-size offering that could possibly coattail off Canon's marketing for the EOS-b.

Olympus has always taken pride in its miniaturization capabilities. I believe the original E-1 was marketed as a small, professional system--though the camera itself wasn't that small. I still remember what a breakthrough design the E-410 was, when it appeared. I hope Olympus can deliver an E-520 form factor with the new high end E. I know others would disagree on this.

I'm not sure where people get the notion that Olympus is still competing in the dslr market??Olympus stopped worrying about anything canikon was doing a long time ago and focused on mirrorless where it has a chance and no you won't find them officially stating that 4/3's is dead because well that doesn't sound good for the company. It's just not good pr, not that their current pr situation is very bright either.Sony also never officially said they'd do away with the optical viewfinders on their top-end FF line but they did which was a huge smack to the face of the decent amount of working pros who were using their ff system since most still prefer ovf's. Nikon didn't say anything about the d100/d200/d300(s) line of bodies being discontinued but they haven't made a cropped sensor sports body ever since! If you're wanting a blazing frame-rate you are forced to buy an fx body. It isn't in a corporation's benefit to announce things that could tarnish their reputation or upset a good amount of people , its better to release an alternative product that some of those people may possibly transition into instead and pretend nothing happened. .i.e. 4/3 into m4/3'sproblem is oly's transition is pretty much jumping into a different mount, hence the mass exodus of 4/3 users. . .this place has become a ghost town in comparisons to how it used to be.

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Oldschool Evolt shooter

I agree that Oly shouldn't be competing directly with Nikon and Canon in the DSLR market. I think that was a fatal mistake in their strategy when they came out with the E-1 and tried to compete with canikon head on. But how should they market the next E? Is it just an upgrade offering for current Oly DSLR users? If they are to try to get new DSLR buyers, how will Oly differentiate itself against the Nikon 7100 or the next iterations of the D300 and 7D? But camera size is a key point of differentiation, as Canon appears to be acknowledging with the new (rumored) camera. So I am just pointing out a potential new lifeline for the new Oly DSLR--if turns out to be a small form factor, and if it can benefit from the buzz that Canon may generate from a small-size DSLR niche market. In that case, Oly would be a high end offering that wouldn't directly compete against Canon, at least for the time being.